Cygames at Evo 2018: Sponsorship details, booth activities and merchandise, and a message from Daigo Umehara

Cygames Beast is ready for Evo 2018!

Evo 2018 is sponsored by Cygames, well-known as the publishers of Shadowverse, but also now known to the fighting game community through the Street Fighter V competitors that comprise the Cygames Beast team: headed by Daigo Umehara, the team currently includes Fuudo, Chris Tatarian, GamerBee, and PR Balrog.

After his recent win at VSFighting 2018 in the UK, Daigo Umehara had a message to share with his fans, as well as all attendees and audience for Evo:

My recent win at VSFighting, which was my first Premier win this year, reflects a recent revelation. Throughout all my years of competitive fighting, I never let myself be swayed by my emotions. I never got nervous or upset over a loss. I remained calm no matter what happened, which was good in itself, but somehow my burning desire to win had also subsided.

Then I have realized that my winning matters so much to people I care about — my sponsors, the people who support my work on day-to-day, and of course my fans. I wanted to persevere to the very end and win for those people. That’s what you saw at VSFighting.

You’ll see more of me throughout this CPT Season. I’m looking forward to my upcoming tournaments. The next stop is Evo!

As an event sponsor, Cygames themselves will not be idle during Evo: their booth will have activities throughout the event, and a selection of merchandise will be available too — including Daigo Umehara’s now-famous book, The Will to Keep Winning (note that the book will be sold at the Nsurgo booth, not the Cygames booth).

Look for Cygames’ brand new social media accounts launching today on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And watch for your favorite Cygames Beast competitors around the Evo venue sporting these custom-made Skajan jackets designed by Takuya Suemoto with Shishumania’s Street Fighter V artwork! (Designs shown are works-in-progress.)

If you want to learn more about Cygames and the sponsorship of Evo 2018, check out the Q&A below!

Cygames Evo 2018 Q&A

Why did Cygames decide to sponsor Evo?

We decided to sponsor Evo because we like fighting games! Cygames is a company that was founded by gamers, and our company mission statement is to deliver the best in entertainment. We are not a company that is driven by marketing logic; we don’t have any grand plan for targeting particular audience segments, or creating products according to a marketing checklist. We just make the games that we like to play; we make manga, anime, merchandise, and we sponsor sports teams, esports teams, and events that we like. And we think Evo is a great event.

It’s also a great fit to expand upon our existing sponsorship of Cygames Beast – our team of Street Fighter players, who will all be competing at Evo. We also want to use our sponsorship of Evo to bring those guys to a wider audience, because we think they deserve it, and because we think people will enjoy watching them play. And, of course, we hope that sponsoring Evo will help us reach new audiences.

What is it about the fighting games community that interest Cygames in terms of audience?

The thing that interests us about the fighting games fans is their passion: fighting games fans are passionate about games, and passionate about competing, and so are we.

You are also sponsoring an esports fighting team, Cygames Beast. Why did you decide to do that, while as a studio you don’t have any fighting games?

We didn’t decide to sponsor Cygames Beast to promote any particular game. We just think they are worth promoting in their own right; another way for us to deliver the best in entertainment. Cygames Beast includes some of the top players in the world, and some of the most charismatic, and people love to watch them play — whether they are winning or losing, they always seem to be involved in some epic match-ups. We hope that our support will help bring them to a wider audience and the recognition that they deserve.

You also have a booth at Evo 2018. What are you planning to showcase there?

The main goal for our booth at Evo 2018 is just to support Cygames Beast — to give them space to rest and to rehearse, and to give them every chance to perform well in the tournament.
But we will also have Cygames Beast merchandise for sale; we’ll be hosting Twitch Japan; we’ll be working with the amazing guys at Cross Counter TV who will be keeping people entertained at the booth and on stream; and we will be showing off Shadowverse, our strategic card game.

Cygames also sponsor the Juventus soccer team. Can you tell us a bit more about the company sponsoring strategy?

Juventus is one of the greatest soccer clubs in the world, and one of the most entertaining, so it was an obvious fit for Cygames to sponsor. Everything always comes back to our desire to deliver the best in entertainment, which is why we also sponsor Cygames Beast; a team of world-class Magic: The Gathering players; the Japanese soccer team Sagan Tosu; the rising MMA star Tenshin Nasukawa (who doesn’t seem capable of scoring a KO that is less than spectacular); and a host of other content.

Cygames is mainly known outside of Japan for the TCG Shadowverse. Can you tell us your plans for this game?

Shadowverse is one of Japan’s leading esports. Many thousands of people turn up to our offline tournaments in Japan, and the competitive scene is growing around the world, too. The esports teams Tempo Storm and Panda Global have just signed up to participate in our Western tournaments, and this December will see our World Grand Prix take place in Tokyo with a first prize of a million dollars. So we intend to support that competitive scene for the foreseeable future. But beyond the competitive scene, Shadowverse is just a very interesting card game, featuring a ton of interesting design mechanics, thanks to a design team made up of world-class card game players. New expansions come out every three months to keep the game fresh and balanced; we are always adding new chapters to the single player story mode; and our new pre-built decks make the game easier to get into than ever before. It’s never been a better time to start playing!